


Desperate

by truthtakestime



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Serious Injuries, Suspense, Team!fic, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 21:45:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1164898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truthtakestime/pseuds/truthtakestime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A jumper crash leaves Sheppard's team in trouble, ranging from "this can't be good" to "we're really, really screwed". Rodney and Lorne to their best to keep everyone on the "not screwed" side of things. (written way back when for the "Desperate" challenge on Wraithbait)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desperate

**Author's Note:**

> Written in July 2009 for this challenge: "Their Jumper crashes miles away from the Stargate. Teyla is dying, John is suffering amnesia, Ronon is missing, and it's up to Rodney and Lorne to save the day. No slash!"
> 
> I came across it again recently and realized that while I had a fairly good grasp of the characters five years ago, the whole thing was in serious need of updating. It still reads just a tad juvenile for my taste (and I clearly didn't have a good handle on some things like what kind of injuries could/would be sustained, and some writerly stuff like switching POV in the middle of scenes), but it's leagues better than the original version. I admit to being just a little proud of it still *wink*. 
> 
> Please forgive any mistakes that I might have missed during my edits, and enjoy??

McKay was the first to wake up after the crash. He groaned, trying to open his eyes as fuzzy memories re-arranged themselves in the proper order. It was a decision he regretted almost instantly when his plight became clear; suddenly, he just wanted to screw his eyes shut and go back to sleep forever. But pain refused to let him slip away again, and there a sense of urgency for his team-mates and Major Lorne that required his attention.

After a moment of careful movement, he managed to sit up, but then his muscles screamed in protest and he slumped against the wall while he looked around. What he saw was bad. 

Lorne, Sheppard, and Teyla had been thrown around the jumper like rag dolls – they were half buried in crates and broken bits of sparking machinery – and the latter of them was bleeding copiously from a head wound and several other nasty looking gashes. He didn't have a good view of the other two from his current position.

There was a moment where he wondered why things seemed incomplete, but then he remembered; Ronon! He wasn't in the jumper. In fact, Rodney saw no sign of him. The windshield of the jumper was shattered however, and he surmised that his team-mate must have been thrown through it at some point during the crash. A sickening feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. Wherever Ronon was now, it was probably already too late.

McKay allowed himself only a moment for grief before he resumed his attempts to stand; there would be time to miss his friend after he had saved the day for everyone else. _As usual_ , he thought to himself as he managed to get himself onto unsteady feet. _I always have to save the day, no matter what I've lost and what little there is to work with._

He picked his way gingerly through the wreckage to his friends, and tried to get some of the debris off of them. While he was attempting this, Lorne started to wake up. Rodney paused for a minute to make sure that he was okay.

"I feel like I got run through the washing-machine on high," the Major confessed, pressing his hands to his ringing head. "But nothing is broken."

"I'm glad that you military men are so arrogant about when you're hurt," McKay said, sliding back into his cranky scientist shell now that he wasn't the only one awake. "Because there's no way that I can dig all three of you out on my own." 

Lorne grinned in spite of himself. Ordinarily he tried not to encourage the scientist, but the fact that he was talking like this and not writing his last will and testament said that he was fine, and he would think of a way out of this.

Together, Lorne and Rodney managed to uncover their team-mates, and had cleared a bit of space in the jumper so that they could lay them down comfortably until they woke up. They were worried about Teyla's head wound, though. It looked serious, and they'd been able to feel when they checked her over that she had multiple broken bones. Sheppard had a significant cut on his head and a lot of bruises and a broken arm, but he was nowhere near as bad as Teyla. Lorne concentrated on trying to help her as best as he could while Rodney probed him for information about their crash.

"Why did we crash?" he asked. "The scanners didn't pick up anything, but we dropped like a stone." 

Lorne shrugged. "Sheppard said that there was some kind of system failure, I think. But all that's kind of a blur. Maybe when he wakes up he can explain it. I kinda thought that maybe _you_ would be able to tell _me_ what happened.”

“I would if everyone hadn't been distracting me with all the bickering,” McKay snapped, before adding in a more uncertain voice, “This isn't too much of a problem, right? I mean, these two are hurt and Ronon is – missing –" He refused to say the word _dead_. "But one of us can just jog back to the gate and radio for help, right? We didn't crash that far away, did we?" He hated not knowing these things, and made a mental note to give everyone a good talking to about distracting him while he was trying to monitor the jumper when they eventually did get out of this. 

Lorne didn't answer immediately, and Rodney felt his already shaky confidence drop a notch. "Major?" he questioned. "We can just walk back to the gate, can't we?" 

The Major shook his head solemnly. "No, we can't. I saw the map on the HUD, we're miles away from the gate. There's no way that we can go back for help."

 

o0o

Evan watched McKay pacing nervously in the cluttered, confined space of the jumper, and frowned at him before returning his attention to Teyla. He'd seen a lot of injuries in his career, and he had a pretty good idea of what people could survive, even people as strong as she was. Between her head wound – which was bleeding too much to see but he guessed was probably a fractured skull or something equally horrible – and the various broken bones in her body, her number was definitely up. He could probably guess the minutes until her death. And McKay's constant pacing and muttering was not helping him think or keep her alive.

"Would you shut up?" he demanded finally. Rodney turned to him with an insulted look on his face, which Evan guessed probably hid his worry. But he was too sick with his own concern to care at the moment. "Instead of walking in circles talking to yourself, you should be trying to figure out a way out of here before she dies!" 

He hadn't meant to say that. 

Rodney stopped dead in his tracks. "She's dying?" he asked nervously, and his concern for his friend instantly softened Lorne's heart.

 

"Yeah, she is," he said regretfully. "But if we can contact the city, then we might still be able to save her. You need to hurry." McKay didn't argue, but immediately shut up as he'd been asked and ducked under the control console, pulling at wires purposefully. Satisfied that the man was doing something productive instead of merely worrying, Lorne again returned his attention to the woman dying beside him.

"What happened?" Evan's head whipped around towards Sheppard's voice, and he peripherally saw that Rodney had done the same.

"Sheppard!"

"Were we in a car crash?" the Colonel asked, confusing them.

"Sheppard, what are you talking about?" Rodney demanded angrily. "This is no time for jokes; you crashed the jumper!"

"Is Mom alright?" he questioned, sitting up and wincing from the pain that had no doubt hit him like a train.

"Sheppard –" Rodney began again, but stopped when his friend turned to him with innocent, terrified blue eyes,

"She's dead, isn't she?" he asked, sounding broken. "She died in the crash."

"John, relax; no one's gonna die!" But the man had fainted, falling back against the floor. McKay looked at Lorne with confusion. "What was that?" he asked. "He sounded like a twelve year-old kid."

"How hard do you think he hit his head?" Evan asked, checking for Teyla's pulse and finding it weak and erratic but mercifully there.

"If how he was talking is any indication…" he trailed off for a second. "But he can't seriously have hit hard enough to have _amnesia_ , can he?"

"Seems like it."

"Then who does he think that he is?"

"I don't know; but it sounded a lot like Sheppard, just a kid. Maybe he's back in his childhood."

"It's possible," Rodney seemed to remember that they were on a clock, and returned to his work while he talked. "With any luck, that was it; and he'll wake up himself again." But they both doubted that that was the case.

 

o0o

McKay worked feverishly on trying to boost the DHD and their radios enough to be able to dial the gate and call for help. Sheppard was still passed out, and Lorne was treating the still-unconscious Teyla. He seemed amazed that she'd survived this long, and Rodney wondered how much longer she had. His guess was not long, and so he worked as hard as he could to give them a shot at getting home alive.

"Why did she have to die?" Sheppard mumbled suddenly, waking up again. "She was way too good to die," Lorne risked turning his attention away from Teyla for a minute to talk to the confused Sheppard, giving McKay a chance to finish his job.  
"Who died?" he asked. 

Sheppard's eyes filled with tears. It was totally unnerving to see his commanding officer cry. "My mom," he said, sniffing. "Joy Sheppard." It confirmed that they were, theoretically, talking to a young John Sheppard.

"I'm sorry," Lorne said, unsure what to do in this situation. This was one of those few odd occurrences that they didn't cover in the Stargate Program's basic training.

"She was so pretty," John sniffed. "And I loved her so much. Everyone did."

"How old are you?" Lorne asked carefully.

"Twelve," he answered, his voice trembling. 

So McKay's guess had been right on the money, then. Ridney felt a swell of sympathy for his friend, who had been with his mother in the accident that had killed her. He knew that Lorne felt the same way when he awkwardly asked Sheppard to sit next to him. 

"I know what it's like to lose someone you love." the Major said, seeming to have recovered enough to play along with John's idea of what was happening. Rodney didn't envy him the task. "When I was a kid my uncle died in this same kind of accident, and we lost one of our friends today." He paused and looked down at Teyla, who was still breathing but despite his efforts was also still bleeding. John followed his eyes.

"Is she dead?" he asked in a small voice. 

Lorne shook his head. "Not yet," he said. "But we need to get her to a doctor as soon as possible; to make sure that she _doesn't_ die." He said it only so he wouldn't scare John. He was counting her breaths like seconds, and unless they got her help within the next ten minutes, give or take, they were not going to get her back.

"She's really pretty," John said, reaching out gingerly and brushing a strand of hair away from her face; his touch as light as if she was a baby bird and he was afraid that he would break her. Realizing that he wanted to help – and not sure if it was the innocent child or the soft side of his CO starting to come out again – he guided his hand to hers instead.

"Hold her hand," he instructed. "I think she'll feel that you're there." 

John obeyed gently. "There's something wrong with her bones," he said suddenly, frowning. "Her fingers feel bent weird." 

Lorne nodded. "That's one of her injuries,” he said, growing worried as a haunted look entered John's eyes.

"Just like my mom," he whispered, withdrawing into his own world but still tenderly holding Teyla's hand.

"Are you almost done?" Lorne asked McKay, his voice urgent. Rodney knew that his friend was out of time.

"Give me two minutes," he begged. "I'll finish by then, I promise." Evan obviously didn't want to waste precious time arguing, because he closed his mouth and let Rodney return to his work.

"I bet you would have liked my mom," John was saying softly to Teyla. "She was pretty too. She had long dark hair and sapphire eyes – that's what my dad always said; sapphire eyes – and really light skin like a princess from a fairytale," he paused thoughtfully. "You could be part of a fairytale too, I guess; or maybe a story like Aladdin. You'd be Jasmine; except I don't think that her hair was red…"

"What about Belle?" Lorne asked, trying to keep from looking at McKay and screaming at him. Or just plain screaming at him.

"From Beauty and the Beast?"

"Yeah. I bet that she could play a Belle." Sheppard considered that for a second, and finally nodded.

"I guess, maybe." His eyes were still teary, and Lorne was worried that he was going to start to cry again. That was the thing that scared him the most, right after Teyla's condition; seeing the Colonel cry. He was sure that Sheppard would never live it down if he found out about all of this.

"Hey," John said, distracting him from that thought, "her breathing is really weird." 

Lorne immediately leaned to listen to her breathing, and after a second he detected what John had; slow, wet gurgles from within her chest. "McKay!" he snapped frantically.

"Just a second!" the scientist reached deep into the console, and suddenly it lit up. He rapidly dialed the address for Atlantis and turned on the radio.

"Atlantis, Atlantis! This is Rodney McKay; our jumper crashed, and we are stranded miles away from the gate, and Teyla is dying; I repeat, Teyla is _dying_! Send help immediately!" There was a tense moment where he heard nothing but static, but just as Rodney was about to give up, a reply crackled in.

"We hear you, Rodney; Ronon just called in too; we're on our way to pick you up." 

Rodney was so stunned, for a second he almost forgot their dire situation in the jumper.

"Ronon? But he was thrown out the windshield of the jumper, he's dead!"

"Not yet." It was the Satedan's voice.

"But, how did you-?"

"I'll tell you once you're all safe," Ronon said. "Sit tight for about two minutes and the jumper will be there." 

They heard Beckett's voice come onto the radio. "Alright, I need you to tell me _exactly_ how Teyla is injured."

While they waited for the other jumper to reach them, McKay and Evan took turns trying to describe everything that was wrong with her; and at the end, McKay carelessly threw in that Sheppard thought he was a twelve year old who had just been in a car crash.

" _What_?" Beckett demanded. "And you didn't think that this was important?"

"Well at least he's not _dying_ from it!" McKay retorted.

"Okay, Rondey, I understand that." They heard him sigh. "All right, we're nearly there. Don't move Teyla, I'll have to treat her before I move her. But get out of the jumper if you can."

Rodney shook his head, even though he knew the doctor couldn't see him. "Um, Lorne is holding her.”

"Then don't move. But Rodney, take Sheppard and get him out of there." McKay turned to his friend.

"Okay, Carson is coming to take care of her; but there's not enough room in here for them. We need to get out."

"I want to stay," John said.

"I'm sorry," Rodney said helplessly. When the man made no effort to move, he grabbed his arm and dragged him outside. The other jumper had landed, and Beckett and several other doctors were rushing towards them with medical equipment.

"Hey!" John was protesting, straining against Rodney's grip. Suddenly fed up with him, Rodney turned around, and before he realized what he was doing, he smacked Sheppard across the face.

"Rodney!" the Colonel protested, rubbing his cheek. "Do you _want_ me to beat you up? Because I swear –" He paused and looked around. "I crashed the jumper?" he asked weakly, and promptly fainted.

o0o

Beckett and his team were working furiously on Teyla, who Lorne was trying to hold as still as possible. Her breathing had almost completely stopped. If Beckett had gotten there even a moment later there likely would have been nothing that he could do. But they were able to at least partially stabilize her, though; she was still critical, but it was enough that they could move her and take her back to Atlantis. They lifted her from Lorne's arms and rushed her back to the jumper, the Major following behind covered in her blood. 

Rodney had managed to get the unconscious Colonel into the back of other jumper while the doctors worked, and the second that the hatch closed the pilot gunned the drive pods. They took off towards the gate so fast that the inertial dampeners couldn't quite compensate, and Rodney felt the pull of the g-force.

o0o

Back on Atlantis, Teyla was taken directly into surgery, and the others were put into the care of capable nurses to have their various cuts and bruises and fractures tended to. Sheppard was unconscious for most of it, awakening for only one fuzzy moment to ask after the state of his jumper before slipping back into oblivion

Once McKay had been bandaged and charged to stay in bed, he disobeyed the nurses and sneaked away to find Ronon. The Satedan was also sneaking around, out of the hospital bed that he definitely should have been in, limping around on crutches with plaster all over his leg.

"Broke it when I fell," he offered in explanation when Rodney saw him and his jaw dropped.

"How are you not dead?" he spluttered, somewhere in between amazement and what most people would have mistaken as anger. But Ronon knew better; he knew that if anything, McKay was angry with the thought that his friend could have died, and his genius could have done nothing to save him.

"Windshield was already cracked when I fell out; we were flying low at the time, so I landed in the bushes. I was a lot closer to the gate; so I made it back and told them you crashed. Didn't know Teyla was so bad, though; I wouldn't have let them wait if I'd known."

"You walked all the way back to the gate on a broken leg?" McKay demanded. 

Ronon shrugged, "It wasn't that far; only a couple of miles."  
"Oh, is that all? I'm sorry, I thought that you'd actually done something dangerous! Silly me, what was I thinking?" 

Ronon grinned; he knew now that his friend was fine. "How's Sheppard and Lorne?" he asked. "I asked one of the doctors – Keller? – but she wouldn't tell me anything; told me to rest." He grinned triumphantly.

"Which explains why you're clumping around the city on crutches." McKay rolled his eyes. "Lorne's fine; he was a little banged up, but even by my standards it wasn't much. I think Sheppard's amnesia is cleared up – would you believe it, he thought he was twelve years old and he'd been in a car accident or something; and he was crying! – but he's still unconscious, probably for the best or I'm sure he'd be complaining his little heart out.”

"He cried?" Ronon inquired. 

Rodney sensed mischief there, and he was glad that he'd only told the innocent parts of the story. He felt almost no guilt in allowing Ronon to harass the man because he'd cried, because that was funny and Sheppard would get over it. But delving into his past would have been unacceptable. "Yes, he did,” he confirmed, :and if you're thinking blackmail… hey, that's not a bad idea!" He fell into step with Ronon – well, about as much step as the big man could on crutches – and they made their way towards the operating rooms. Teyla was still in surgery, but they wanted to be there when she came out, just to make sure that she was okay.

When they got there, they were surprised to find that the surgery was not nearly completed.

"Carson should have been able to fix her by now," Rodney grunted in confusion. Ronon stopped one of the scrub-clad doctors hurrying out of the room, and she looked up at him, her eyes instantly filled with horror.

"Ronon! What are you doing, you should be in bed!" she yelled at him accusingly. It was that Doctor who he'd mentioned before, Keller.

"How is she?" he asked, ignoring her anger. "Doc should have had her fixed up by now; what's taking so long?"

"He's got her stabilized; but she needs at least five separate surgeries for all her injuries; and she's lost massive amounts of blood, and there's a high probability of brain damage. I don't know if she's gonna make it to recovery, even if the surgery _is_ successful." 

Ronon let out a shout of defiance that nearly deafened them; but even through the roaring in his ears, McKay was forming the beginnings of a plan. He grabbed Ronon's arm and started dragging him away. "Come on, I've got an idea."

"This is your idea?" Ronon demanded as the scientist led him through the bowls of the city to a lab that they had discovered several months before.

"Just shut up for a second and make sure I don't kill myself, will you?" Rodney growled, stepping up to the machine in the middle of the room and initializing it. Ronon recognized it as the ascension machine.

"I thought that we decided never to use this again."

"Ah, but you remember what I could do when I'd used it, right?"

"You could steal donuts and read minds," Ronon recalled irritably. "What does that have to do with –?"

"Do you remember what I did for Radek?" Ronon frowned as that part came back to him. The Czech scientist had been electrocuted, and there had been a huge, singed hole in his chest. McKay had healed him.

Light spiraled around McKay, much like it had the first time that he'd used the machine; except now he knew exactly what to do. There were a few moments of unconscious after the initial transformation, but as soon as he woke up he followed Ronon back up to the infirmary, and pushed through the crowds of doctors and nurses and aides to the O.R., shocking them all, especially Beckett.

"What do you think you're doing?!" he demanded angrily as McKay practically shoved him aside. Rodney ignored him and left Ronon to answer questions as he stood before his friend's body. He looked down at her, realizing how vulnerable his ever-strong friend really was. But he pushed those thoughts out of his mind and closed his eyes. Concentrating, he placed his hands lightly on her body over her injuries. The doctors watched in surprise and amazement as her wounds slowly began to heal, leaving nothing but dried blood crusted on her clothes and in her hair. When he was done, McKay turned to Carson.

"Could we please skip the weeks of my body trying to ascend and just change me back immediately?" he asked.

o0o

Teyla woke up slowly, to the muted sounds of the infirmary. There was light behind her eyelids, but she was still too tired to open them. She tried to remember what had happened, but after the crash there was nothing in her mind but darkness. And a headache. She wondered if she had dreamed the whole thing. But then why was she in the infirmary?

Slowly and a little painfully, her eyes fluttered opened. She caught a glimpse of her entire team and Major Lorne sitting around her room in the infirmary before her eyes blinked shut again. 

They all noticed almost at once that she was awake.

"Hey, welcome back to the land of the living," Sheppard teased, poking her hand gently.

Teyla opened her eyes again, and it was easier the second time. "What happened?" she asked, licking her dry lips.

"Sheppard crashed the jumper," Ronon said. The Colonel instantly protested that it wasn't his fault, and while they argued, Teyla looked each of them over and found them all perfectly fine.

"How is it that you three are uninjured and I am in the infirmary?" she questioned.

"Oh, believe me, we weren't," McKay said. "In fact, if it wasn't for _me_ ," he smiled smugly, "Then Ronon would have a broken leg and all sorts of other crazy injuries from being _thrown_ out of the windshield of the crashing jumper, me and the Major would be in bad shape and, um, the Colonel here would be a crying, twelve-year old mess."

"Hey!"

"What?! It's not my fault you got a crack on the head big enough to make _you_ crack."

"I did not _cry_!" he insisted.

"How did you save them, Rodney?" Teyla asked, in an effort to stop their argument and keep her headache from building.

"You remember the ascension machine that zapped me a while back? I used it again, just long enough to heal all you guys; then I had Beckett put me back to normal."

"Why am I still here then?" she asked, suddenly a little worried. She looked down at herself, as if trying to find her injuries.

"You're not hurt anymore," Lorne assured her. "But…"

"You were pretty bad." Ronon finished. Teyla was almost afraid to know, but she made them describe to her exactly how she had been hurt. Reluctantly, they did. Her fingers unconsciously reached up to touch her hair where her injury had been, and was amazed that she had survived long enough to make it back to Atlantis, for Rodney to save. She told them so, and they all exchanged glances. They hadn't thought that she was going to make it, either.

"But I am whole again?" she had to clarify. The guys all nodded.

"You're fine. Carson just wants to keep you here overnight for observation. "

"And rest," the doctor said, entering the room. "And that's what the four of you need too, so out. You can talk about the rest tomorrow."

With good-natured grumbling – they didn't want to risk making the doctor _too_ mad – the guys left the room. After he'd checked a few scans and monitors, Beckett ordered Teyla to rest, too. And in spite of her desire to call her teammates back she found herself unable to keep her eyes opened, and slowly drifted into gentle dreams. She didn't awaken until much later.

The lights had been dimmed so that she could sleep, and she had been left alone for quite some time, doing just that. But she had been startled awake by some noise. She opened her sleepy eyes to see McKay, apparently having just bumped into a table, trying to sneak out without making any more ruckus. She smiled a little. "Rodney, what is it?" 

He looked up and blushed; he had obviously not intended to be caught in here. "I just wanted to see how you were doing."

"I am fine," she assured him. "You saved me."

"I did, didn't I?" he smiled to himself. But a second later it faded from his face. "It wasn't just me, though, you know," he said softly. "I healed you here; but it was Major Lorne who kept you alive in the jumper while I tried to fix it. Him and Sheppard; although I doubt that the Colonel realized it, But you know how both their egos are; that's why I didn't say anything before. They can be such attention-grabbers sometimes." Teyla smiled softly to hear him, as always, passing off his own faults on others. But she could not grudge him for it, not today. Not when he had healed them all.

"Thank you, Rodney," she said softly. "For everything." She reached out her hand, and he stared at it for a moment in confusion before he realized that he was meant to take it. Awkwardly, he grasped her warm fingers, and she pulled him closer and down, until their foreheads touched. "Thank you, Rodney McKay," she repeated. "I will never forget what you have done for me. For all of us." She had never felt as close to the man as she did today; except for that one moment, not so long ago, when he had offered to join her for the tea ceremony in honor of her father's death. But she was reminded with surprising clarity how deeply she cared for her friend.

For a moment they didn't move; but finally, Rodney straightened. "I'm really sorry," he said, "but I _really_ have to go. I'm not actually even supposed to be in here; I don't want Carson to find out, but…" he leaned over and kissed her gently on the forehead. "Sleep well," he said, before slipping silently out of the room. Teyla was surprised by his gesture, but not upset. She started to fade out of awareness again, and fell asleep with a smile on her lips.

_fin._


End file.
